Fuel cells may include fuel cell stacks having many cells connected electrically in series or parallel. If one of the cells fail, it would be desirable to electrically remove the cell from the stack so that the current being produced by the fuel cell can bypass them. Removing the defective cells from the stack allows the stack to become more fault tolerant by avoiding the defective cells. There is therefore a need in the art for an improved fuel cell having the ability to remove defective cells from an array or stack of fuel cells improving the fault tolerance of the stack.
Additionally, a bypass circuit for interconnecting fuel cells may be utilized to modify the current or voltage output of the fuel cell, as well as the efficiency and desired output of the fuel cell. There is therefore, a need in the art for management of a fuel cell stack to adjust the overall power output of a fuel cell and to provide active control of individual fuel cells within the stack thereby modifying the interconnection between the plurality of fuel cells to actively control various parameters of the fuel cell.